Oh, I love a biography about a forgotten famous woman! The great thing about this biography is that it doesn't stop at Mrs. Beeton's life and career (which was short--Isabella died at 28), but that it expands to look at how her book, Beeton's Book of Household Management, lived on well after her death. Isabella Beeton (nee Mayson) didn't really have a particularly interesting life (at least not yet, I'm only on pg 148), but Hughes manages to make the rather ordinariness of her life compelling. After all, who hasn't been annoyed with a loved one? Whose loved one doesn't hate your family? These are not fascinating events, but that they befall a purveyor of domestic bliss is, at least, touching.And I am totally over-identifying with Mrs. Beeton's coping mechanisms--if only I make a list and "get organized" everything will fall into place (memo: this doesn't work). This is also why I love self-help and behavior guides (somewhat ironically); they break living down to a science, boring and predictable and incredibly soothing...
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